Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata has pledged to take a fifty percent salary cut in atonement for the 3DS' less-than-stellar retail performance. Following yesterday's news that Nintendo would behacking the cost of its new handheldby close to 33% across the globe come August, Iwata met with investors to explain the rash decision, take responsibility for the system's sales, andreveal how heand other Big N bigwigsare sacrificing their own coin to keep shareholders happy.
"For cuts in fixed salaries, I'm taking a fifty percent cut, other representative directors are taking a 30 percent cut, and other execs are taking a 20 percent cut," said Iwata, whoreportedly earns an annualwage akin to US$2 million.
Iwata later told investors he believes the 3DS price cut - down to $169.99 from $249.99 in the USeffective August 12th- will put the handheld back on the map, and that Nintendo would have done the same with the Game Cube in retrospect. Moreover, he admitted the loweredunitpricewill initially make the system non-profitable,but assured attendees that productions costs were likely to go down once the handheld's salesstart picking up.
Today's meeting follows a 24-hour string of bad news for Nintendo. Shortly after announcing the 3DS' reduced price, Nintendo'sstock dropped 12.2%. Naturally, this led to some concern amongst shareholders, including the company's former president, Hiroshi Yamauchi’s, whowas reported to havelost the equivalent of US$300 millionin stock value overnight. Considering he's estimated to be worth $4.6 billion, we're sure he'll weather the storm. Then again, he could always just buy 27,218,934 3DSs and solve everyone's problem (and no, I didn't do well in economics back in high school, why do you ask?).
Jul 29, 2011
Source:David Gibson TwitterviaKotaku,Bloomberg
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